1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated communication system constituted by combining an intelligent network (IN) and a telecommunications management network (TMN).
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the network architecture based on the known principle of distributed processing, the whole system is constituted by repetition of the same function, so that an advantage is achieved in view of extension of the network. However, from the standpoint of successively introducing new services in compliance with the recent tendency toward enhanced diversity of needs, it is necessary to realize repeated arrangements of the same function in the entire network at the introduction of new services, whereby the existence of limits is unavoidable as pointed out heretofore. For this reason, there is contrived an idea to accomplish that, while an exchange station maintains the conventional simple distributed processing mode, complicated processing relative to new services and so forth is executed by a centralized control method, and thus an intelligent network is proposed.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram for explaining how service control is executed in an intelligent network. In the intelligent network, its service control functions are dispersed to a service control point (SCP) 21 for centralized control and a service switching point (SSP) 22 arranged dispersedly, and a service is executed with mutual operations thereof.
In the service control point 21, a service logic program (SLP) 23 having a description of a service execution procedure is executed by a service logic execution environment (SLEE) in accordance with an event trigger obtained from the service switching point 22, and a call control instruction is outputted to the service switching point 22.
In the service switching point 22, the received instruction is translated under the supervision of a call state management 25, and a basic call processing (BCP) 26 conforming to a basic call state model (BCSM: standardized model of a call state transition from start to end) is executed in response to the instruction obtained from the service control point 21. Thus, introduction of a new service can be realized merely by adding the required function to the service control point 21.
Meanwhile, maintaining the reliability of the network is an important problem. However, the conventional network management is extremely inefficient in most cases since such maintenance is customarily performed per apparatus of each vendor or per communication equipment, and a management operating console is required for each vendor or equipment.
For this reason, attempts at standardizing an interface to exchange management information for each vendor or equipment have been tried, and a study relative to a telecommunications management network (TMN) is currently in progress.
In the telecommunications management network, an operation system (OS) for concentratively executing maintenance management and a managed system (inclusive of switching system and transmitting apparatus) are modeled as "manager" and "agent" respectively, and each of the apparatus and functions in the managed system is expressed abstractly as a managed object (MO), thereby enabling integrated management of various information communication equipment under a multi-vendor environment.
Now an example of the above will be specifically described with reference to FIG. 2 which explains connection setting in a telecommunications management network.
A managed system (switching system in this example) 27 is expressed by a managed object. A managed element object 28 is a logical expression of the switching system 27 which is a managed system in this case, and includes both a connection termination point (CTP) MO 29 and a fabric MO 30.
The connection termination point MO 29 expresses a logical termination point of a connection, and the fabric MO 30 is a logical expression of a channel apparatus. The fabric MO 30 includes a cross connection (XC) MO 31 which expresses a joint in the connection.
In the switching system 27 to be managed, the fabric MO 30 produces the cross connection MO 31 in response to a connection request "connect" outputted from a manager 33 in an operation system 32, and connects the connection termination points MO 29 and 29 to each other via the cross connection MO 31.
In the manner mentioned above, the intelligent network and the telecommunications management network are presently in the individual studies independently of each other on the basis of the respective purposes for introduction. And it is a current situation that, in the intelligent network and the telecommunications management network, each connection processing or setting is realized by an individual method through mutually different interfaces.
Consequently, it has been necessary heretofore to develop software independently with respect to the two networks mentioned, hence raising a problem of double development of software.
Another problem existing in the prior art resides in that it is impossible to perform proper operation (maintenance management) optimal to each service provided by the intelligent network.
Furthermore, it has been impossible to accomplish provision of an integrated new service which combines the service provided by the intelligent network and that by the telecommunications management network.